WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump launched a full court press this week to get Congress to provide his administration with the resources it needs to carry out mass deportations.
The administration is seeking money for detention beds and repatriation flights as it ramps up an effort to remove migrants who are in the country without legal permission. The president met with House Freedom Caucus members about his budget request on Wednesday.
He urged Congress to send him money for accelerating removals “without delay” on Tuesday evening and told Republican leaders on Capitol Hill: “Let’s get it to me. I’ll sign it so fast you won’t even believe it.”
Trump made immigration the centerpiece of his joint address to Congress and sent Vice President JD Vance to the U.S. southern border amplify his message.
“Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history, and we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded,” Trump said Tuesday evening.
The administration has not said how much money it needs to carry out Trump’s directives. But part of the money would go toward family residential centers. Trump officials have said they want to conduct DNA testing to ensure children brought to the country by adults are blood relatives. The administration has also indicated it intends to deport families together.
His administration has said it is targeting dangerous criminals who are in the country illegally but often are found residing with migrants who are not a priority for removal and are then also taken into custody.
The Biden administration responded to higher encounters by pushing a bipartisan bill that would have provided additional resources to immigration agencies and given the president the power to close the border. Trump said new legislation was not needed to secure the border. “It turned out that all we really needed was a new president,” he said.
President Joe Biden largely suspended asylum at the border in June 2024, and Trump continued the restriction the asylum application process when he took office.
Trump officials have argued more money is needed to enforce priorities.
“We need money for more beds,” border czar Tom Homan said at the White House this week. “We need money for more flights. We need money to keep concentrating on the worst of the worst. ICE is already in the hole, and we need Congress to step up and give us the funding.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C, said in February that the administration was seeking $175 billion. The nonpartisan American Immigration Council estimates it would cost at least $88 billion per year to deport 1 million people.
After the House Freedom Caucus meeting, Texas Rep. Chip Roy told USA TODAY they discussed the issue with Trump.
“We need to make sure they’ve got the resources necessary for ICE, for beds, to be able to deliver and get on with removals and repatriations while they’re carrying out the president’s agenda there,” Roy said.
But under the current plan, that money would not be appropriated until the next fiscal year, the Republican pointed out. Lawmakers are discussing an extension of government funding at the current levels to meet a March 14 deadline to avoid a government shutdown.
In his address, Trump blasted the Biden administration for increased encounters, and said that “virtually all of” the migrants who were taken into custody during his term were released into the U.S.
“They heard my words and they chose not to come. Much easier that way,” Trump said.
Illegal border crossings often fall dramatically when a new administration arrives, as migrants take a wait-and-see approach before deciding to try their luck at the border.
For those who do come, Border Patrol agents and CBP officers take fingerprints and examine each migrant’s available record before releasing them with a notice to appear in immigration court.Trump’s tough message, along with an ongoing crackdown by Mexican authorities along migration routes, helped push unlawful border crossings to a historic low in February. Trump said Saturday on his social media site that encounters during his “first full month in office” – running from Jan. 20 to Feb. 20 – illegal border crossings fell to 8,300.
There is no direct comparison, but the number would be far below the roughly 190,000 migrant encounters in February 2024. U.S. Customs and Border Protection hasn’t posted official encounters for February yet.
Vance heads to the US-Mexico border
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Vance flew to Texas on Wednesday to continue the push. They toured the border, received a briefing and met with government and law enforcement officials in Eagle Pass.
Eagle Pass was a symbolic site of the spat between Texas and the Biden administration, where Gov. Greg Abbott anchored his Operation Lone Star and state authorities took control of a piece of the border at the city’s Shelby Park along the Rio Grande.
Abbott joined Trump officials on Wednesday.
Contributing: Zac Anderson
